The Match King
The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
by Frank Partnoy
Though his name isn’t a common synonym for fraud, Ivar Kreuger was in many ways a far greater swindler than Charles Ponzi.
Like Ponzi, Kreuger was a European immigrant who sailed to America with little more than a few bucks and a penchant for self-invention. He surpassed Ponzi’s modest trick, building a worldwide financial empire shrouded in such trickery and obscurity as to outwit the brightest bankers of the 1920s and early 30s. And …
